the host committee, a cadre of professional event planners and volunteers from mostly tourism-related companies, has met the challenges it faced, says Ky Snyder (above), host committee president.

Last summer, the San Diego Super Bowl XXXVII Host Committee faced one crisis after another.

Stadium improvements promised to the National Football League had to be scrapped, forcing the host committee to pay $1.6 million to the NFL to cover a seating shortage at Qualcomm Stadium. Also, locations for the NFL Experience theme park kept falling through.

And the burgeoning debate over the Chargers' future in San Diego was hurting host committee efforts to raise the $6 million needed to cover its budget.

"The big word was uncertainty," said Ron Fowler, chairman of San Diego's host committee. "There was so much uncertainty on so many issues, it was frustrating."

But today, the host committee, a cadre of professional event planners and volunteers from mostly tourism-related companies, has met the challenges it faced, said Ky Snyder, host committee president.

Snyder and Fowler said fund-raising goals were surpassed but declined to say by how much. Snyder said the stadium deficiencies were worked out with league officials. The NFL Experience ended up at the South Embarcadero Marina Park, which NFL organizers consider an attractive site, and Super Bowl events are scheduled throughout downtown.

Beyond planning Super Bowl events, the host committee acts as an intermediary between the NFL and San Diego in arranging transportation, hotels and security. It also recruits volunteers and recommends local charities that the NFL can assist.

"It's all about a team of organizations," Snyder said. "The Police Department, the San Diego County Hotel-Motel Association, the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau . . . it's so many groups that had to work together. It's the ultimate team event."

Jim Steeg, the NFL vice president in charge of organizing the Super Bowl, considers the San Diego host committee one of the country's best. "Outside of the stadium, everything has been great," Steeg said. "They found a solution to every problem."

In 1998, city leaders promised the NFL that infrastructure issues at Qualcomm Stadium would be addressed by Sunday's game. Promises included renovated locker rooms, an expanded press box, a new sound system and the installation of about 2,500 temporary seats.

Last summer, city officials said delays in moving the Padres out of the stadium prevented some of the improvements from being made.

Host committee staff worked with Steeg, who ultimately accepted the deficiencies but the NFL required a $1.6 million payment for the seating shortage.

Keeping the organizing team together after the big game has become the goal in many cities that intend to vie again to host the NFL's annual convention and championship game.

With the budgets for staging a Super Bowl getting more expensive, cities increasingly use professionals to coordinate their bids and administer local host committees.

"It's not going to happen anymore with a bunch of folks coming together once a month," said Don Schumacher, executive director of the National Association of Sports Commissions. "Hosting a Super Bowl is serious business."

Snyder, who previously worked with the San Diego International Sports Council to promote and administer other sports events such as the X-Games, said, "There's some stability to working with the same people over and over again."

As president of the sports council, Snyder was part of the host committee board in 1998 and a key member of the delegation that in 1999 pitched a San Diego Super Bowl to the NFL.

This year's host committee budget has doubled since the last Super Bowl was played in San Diego in 1998, soaring to more than $6 million. That figure does not include costs paid by the city for such items as stadium improvements and police overtime on game day, or by the Port District, which controls the land where the NFL Experience is being held.

The sports council, which has a management contract with the Super Bowl host committee, also receives an annual city subsidy of about $200,000.

One of the San Diego host committee's big challenges, besides dealing with Qualcomm's limitations, was raising cash.

Some corporations didn't want to be Super Bowl sponsors because they feared being linked to the Chargers' demand for a new stadium. "We're under this cloud called the Chargers issue," Fowler said in July.

In addition to the Chargers controversy, a series of corporate scandals and a struggling national economy forced the host committee to change its fund-raising approach, said Fowler, who owns a Miller Beer distributing operation that does business at Qualcomm Stadium.

Rather than concentrate on selling sponsorships, the host committee began offering hospitality packages, which let companies put their names on private tent parties without having to disclose the cost to shareholders and employees.

"It was easier to sell hospitality packages than it was to sell pure sponsorships," Fowler said.

And the change in strategy let Fowler and Snyder meet their money goals. "In fund raising it's been a challenge, but I feel pretty good," Fowler said.